


A Kind of Science

by orphan_account



Category: Archie Comics
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 00:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10888356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After having her heart broken one too many times, Betty decides to bow out of the eternal battle for the affections of one Archie Andrews for good. Understandably worried about her, Jughead decides to be the best friend that she needs and offers her both his help and support.Neither of them could have ever predicted the chain reaction both their choices trigger and the resulting outcome.





	A Kind of Science

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, here is my attempt at leading my fellow comics-era Bughead shippers down memory lane; if you're a Riverdale inductee, come and join the old guard! (Although you should probably try not to hate all the parents every moment that they appear since they're all a lot nicer in the original material.)

> “ _The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”_
> 
> – _Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)_

It was a sunny Saturday and the weather was neither too bright nor too hot despite it being only slightly past noon. His father was watching TV in the living room, his mother had gone to the supermarket to buy ingredients for dinner and Jellybean was napping in her room. Archie had a date with Betty – which he was probably running late for as usual – so he was unlikely to call for whatever reason or ask to hang out for the next few hours. He even had the assurance that Hot Dog would not bother him until it was dinnertime as the sheepdog was happily dozing on the floor of his bedroom.

All in all, Jughead was looking forward to spending the next few hours playing games without anyone interrupting him. A pretty great way to spend his weekend if he did say so himself.

His game of choice was in the process of starting up when his phone rang and he sighed, wondering if he'd jinxed himself by thinking he would be left alone for the entire afternoon. Picking the device up without paying too much attention to it, he spared a passing glance at the name of the caller flashing on the screen as he tried to think up a snappy way to answer it. Then he mentally stopped short and forced himself to blink just to be sure that his eyes hadn't deceived him.

It was Betty.

Alarm bells began ringing immediately. On the surface, there was no discernible reason why she would be calling him right now when she was – his gaze darted to the clock – supposed to be on her date with his best friend right this minute.

However, he could hazard a guess as to the reason. He wasn't new to this song and dance, after all.

Still, it didn't pay to make any assumptions so he decided to answer his phone like normal. “Hey Betty,” he greeted casually.

Unfortunately, his ears picked up the sound of his one and only female best friend sobbing quietly on her end of the line. “Hey Juggie,” she managed to get out.

Jughead felt his heart plummet. “Betty, what's wrong?”

The answer to his question was preceded by a wet and very weak attempt at a laugh. “I think you can guess.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and massaged the bridge of his nose with his free hand in an effort to stave off the headache he could feel coming. “Archie cancelled, didn't he? Because of something our resident heiress suddenly 'remembered' or needed from him?”

“Yes and yes,” Betty responded quietly but she at least didn't try to laugh again. Still, he could guess from the sound of her voice that her face was currently scrunched up in that particular way it did when she was on the verge of bawling her eyes out but was mustering up a tremulous smile anyway.

“Betty...” he started only to be interrupted.

“I don't know why I keep trying, Jug,” she confessed morosely. “Veronica wins almost all the time and I'm tired of... of _resenting_ my best friend for it.”

The alarm bells which had not actually stopped ringing from earlier only intensified. A part of him considered making a quip now about contesting who actually held the title of 'Betty's Best Friend' but he knew that any attempts at humour right now would fall flat. “Betty,” he asked cautiously, “what are you trying to say?”

“I'm saying I give up, Jughead. I'm not going to chase Archie any more.” She said it so softly Jughead didn't think he would've been able to catch it if he hadn't been concentrating so hard on picking up every shift in her tone.

“You've said that before,” he commented neutrally even though he somehow knew that this time... this time was different.

This time, it sounded so... final.

True enough, her response only confirmed his suspicions. “I mean it this time. I can't-” Her voice broke, and the sound was so devastating that he felt like his heart had done the same. “I can't do this any longer, Juggie. _I just can't._ ”

“Betty-”

“I'm sorry,” she cut him off yet again. “I didn't mean to make you listen to me cry about Archie. Again. I promise this will be the last time.”

“Come on, Betts,” he gently rebuked her, “you know I've always got your back especially when it comes to this. I never hesitate to be there for you when you need me and that's by choice so apology neither accepted nor needed. Ever.”

“Thanks, Jug,” she sniffled. There was a brief pause which he presumed was her trying to bring her turbulent emotions back under control before she could string words together again without melting down. “I should go. I'm going for a clean break and... I'll see you on Monday, okay? Sorry if I ruined your weekend.”

“It's fine, you didn't interrupt anything important,” he reassured her quickly. “Are you going to be fine though?”

This time, the pause went on for much longer. Jughead was distantly aware that his right hand was cramping up after having held his phone in a death grip for so long but he didn't dare to so much as loosen it until the call had ended.

“I... I think so. Eventually, anyway.” Another sniffle punctuated her sentence. “Bye, Jughead. Thanks for listening like always.”

“Bye, Betty. Don't hesitate to call again if you need me to help in any way and like I said earlier, no need to thank me,” he reiterated. At that, he heard her hum non-committally in response before the 'click' signalling the end of the call greeted his ears.

Finally allowing himself to put the phone down, Jughead flexed his hand in an attempt to get rid of the tingling sensation in his fingers as he mulled over the situation.

On one hand, Betty had indicated that this was something she felt she had to do alone and it was true. This was something she had decided to do of her own will and she clearly needed to reassure herself that she could do it without having to rely on someone else to carry her through it all. He could leave her to it and play his new game which he'd been anticipating since they first announced it ages ago like he'd originally planned.

On the other hand, she'd been crying. Heck, he was pretty sure she'd started crying again after she'd put down the phone. Regardless of what she'd told him, he was sure that she'd been mostly putting on a brave front at the end of their call so that he wouldn't worry about her.

Understandably oblivious to his ruminations, the television he'd plugged his game console into cheerily began playing the game's opening song again for something like the fifth time.

It was a no-brainer, really.

He hated it when Betty was upset and hated it even more when she cried. It was the one thing he always had trouble forgiving Archie for causing even though they were brothers in all but blood. If it wasn't Archie, it was Veronica and really, maybe he really did have to have a word with Betty about who really deserved to be called her best friend. But that was a matter for another time.

Mind made up, it took him less than five minutes to power down his game console and the television, go downstairs, pop his head into the living room to tell his father he was going out and be out the front door. The walk to his destination consumed roughly the same amount of time – he may have walked a little faster than his usual sedate pace – but before long he was ringing the doorbell of the Cooper residence.

“Oh, Jughead!” Alice Cooper exclaimed in surprise when she opened the door. “You know you're always welcome to visit but I have to say this is unexpected.”

“Hi, Mrs Cooper,” he greeted her with one raised hand. “Betty called, so.” It wasn't necessary to say any more than that.

The Cooper matriarch sighed, her expression a cross between open relief and quiet sorrow. “Of course she'd call you,” she murmured seemingly more to herself than him before offering him a wan smile. “She's in her room. See if you can convince her to come down for a snack please? I'm baking some brownies to try and cheer her up; you're welcome to have some as a thank you for being here for her.”

“Shucks, Mrs C,” he grinned as he stepped inside the house, “you know you never have to bribe me when it comes to this but I'm always open to being fed any time and any day.”

That earned him a laugh. “I think if I ever see you refuse good food, I'll immediately look out the nearest window to see if I can spot the flying pigs.”

“Hmm, flying pigs...” he mused out loud theatrically even as he made his way up the staircase and Mrs Cooper headed back into the kitchen. “Do you think they'll taste any different from regular pigs?”

She laughed again but chose not to respond to his joking this time, settling instead for making a shooing motion with her hand before she was out of sight.

And just like that, the brief moment of witticism was over and the real reason he was here returned to the forefront of his mind. He mentally braced himself for whatever he was about to find as he finally reached Betty's room and found the door slightly ajar.

He still wasn't prepared for what he found.

Due to the fact that they'd grown up together, Jughead had naturally found himself spending a decent amount of time in not only the Cooper residence but Betty's room. As such, he considered himself to be pretty familiar with everything from its look to its layout. Betty was a neat freak who liked to have everything in its proper place. Even so, she was somehow able to balance that with her overabundance of Archie 'memorabilia', for lack of a better term, which occupied ungodly amounts of space especially when it came to the walls. (He always made it a point to complain at least once every visit about feeling like he was being stared at and she always responded with a throw pillow aimed at his face. It was their own little routine.) As a result, her room embodied the perfect and paradoxical balance between order and chaos.

The sight before him, however, was pure unadulterated chaos.

Several of the pictures on the wall had been taken down and were now scattered across the floor. Accompanying them was a random assortment of items ranging from little trinkets to pressed flowers. A purple teddy bear lay forlornly on its side, looking for all the world as if it was suffering from a severe stomach-ache.

It looked as if a hurricane had swept through the room... and at the heart of it was a familiar blonde on the bed with her knees drawn up and her face hidden behind them. In the dead silence of her room, his ears easily picked up the unmistakable sound of her sniffling.

Betty was not alone, however. At her side was her ever-faithful cat Caramel who was currently seated on the bed and staring at her owner with a rather forlorn look on her face. Unlike said owner, the feline noticed Jughead's appearance at the door and meowed pitifully at him as if beseeching him for help.

Well, that was yet another female asking him for his assistance in this matter and he didn't feel like disappointing this one either.

'Don't worry, I've got this,' he tried to mentally communicate to her as he stepped into the room and made his way to the bed, taking care to avoid stepping on any of the numerous items strewn across the floor.

Considering the state she was it, it was no surprise that Betty only noticed his presence when he picked up Caramel and plopped himself on the spot the cat had previously occupied, jostling her slightly in the process. “Wh- Jughead?” she sputtered in surprise when she looked up. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Betts,” he greeted her as she tried to wipe away her tears although it didn't do her much good as her eyes were still noticeably red and puffy. “You really can't have expected me to just blissfully go on with my day after that call, right?”

There was a brief moment where it looked like she wanted to argue but he levelled a flat look at her which he hoped communicated that it was meant to be a rhetorical question. Thankfully, that seemed to be enough as she visibly deflated. “No...” she quietly admitted.

He allowed himself a small smile at the minor victory before deciding to address the situation at hand. “So, was there a recent major shift in the weather that I missed? Because it looks like a tornado came to visit you just before I got here,” he remarked as he looped his right arm around her shoulders and drew her into a loose side-hug.

“I told you,” she mumbled as she leaned into him and half-buried her face in his chest. Considering the fact that she was likely to cry again, he mentally prepared himself for the inevitable and sadly familiar experience of wearing a tear-soaked shirt. “I'm making a clean break.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow at that even though she couldn't see it due to her current position. “Uh, I'm not really seeing how any of this can be even remotely linked to the word 'clean' in any universe,” he quipped.

That earned him a half-hearted poke in his gut which he bravely endured (okay, so maybe he winced a little – Betty sometimes didn't know her own strength). “Very funny, wise guy,” she muttered although he was almost sure he detected a slight positive change in her tone. Maybe she'd even smiled a little, if he was lucky. “You know what I mean.”

“Right, right,” he conceded. “I'm guessing this is a deep cleanse of all things Archie in your room.” She nodded. “Yeah, I suppose an exorcism would've been too extreme,” he mused out loud in faux solemnity; that earned him a faint giggle which he felt more than heard so he kept going. “Want me to find some sage or something and wave it around in here? I could yell some strange mumbo-jumbo while doing it too just to sell the act.”

This time she actually laughed audibly and his heart soared just a little. “Don't be silly, Jughead.”

“You're right, I don't think it would be easy for me to find some sage on such short notice,” he acknowledged gravely before sobering. “Seriously though, is there anything I can do to help? It looks like you could use a hand or two.”

“What?” Surprised, she sat up to stare at him in shock. “Jug, I can't ask this of you. I mean, this is something I feel like I should be able to do by myself so that I know I can commit to it-”

“Hey,” he chided her gently as he placed his hands on her shoulders and stared straight into her baby blue eyes, “I'm here for you, all right? In every sense of the word. What you just said makes a lot of sense, sure, but you don't _have_ to tackle this alone. Okay?” There was a noticeable pause before she nodded hesitantly but it was good enough for him. “Okay. Now just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Okay,” Betty echoed as she sat up a little straighter. Jughead let his hands fall and watched quietly as she gathered herself before speaking again. “Could you please help take down the rest of the pictures on the walls while I sort out all the other stuff? I've decided to give away most of the things he gave me over the years and... there's actually quite a few of them hidden in my cupboard.”

That explained the hodgepodge of stuffed animals and trinkets littering the floor. “And those?” he asked, nodding his head at the wealth of photos decorating the frame of her vanity mirror.

She shook her head slowly. “I have to go through them properly myself – some of them are group photos and I don't really feel like throwing any of them away so... just the pictures on the walls.”

“Roger that, Captain Cooper,” he mock saluted and got to work, not missing the look of fond exasperation that flickered across her face before he turned away. It was heartening and helped take the edge off the admittedly strange task that lay before him: repeatedly ripping his best friend's face off the walls of his other best friend's bedroom. Well, he supposed that meant he didn't have to endure being stared at by a dozen larger-than-life Archie heads whenever he visited in the future at least.

The next hour or so was spent in relative silence aside from the almost rhythmic sound of tearing paper (his doing) and the erratic rustling of things being pulled out of their hiding space to be put into a cardboard box (her doing). Meanwhile, Caramel had become satisfied within the first five or so minutes that her precious human was no longer making sad sounds and opted to have her share of the fun. To Betty's mild frustration and Jughead's amusement, that sadly involved playing with the many items decorating the floor and, on one memorable occasion, trying to scamper off with a small pink dolphin.

Feline interference aside, the entire thing was over and done with before long and Jughead carried the now full cardboard box to the garage while Betty tidied up her room. The both of them then carried one plastic bag each down and out of the house; one had the remains of her bedroom's former wall decorations and was meant for the recycling bin while the other contained items that she had deemed unsuitable for charity.

It all seemed rather anticlimactic, Jughead thought as they looked at the two unassuming bags sitting on the pavement. There had been no fanfare marking this admittedly significant turning point in Betty's life but maybe... maybe it was for the best. Betty's love for Archie had been intense and every moment of it had been all but shouted from the rooftop of every building in Riverdale. Maybe allowing it to be put to rest in such a quiet and subdued manner was the only appropriate way to deal with it.

The line of thought was really too maudlin for a carefree soul like him and a bright sunny day like today so he decided to put an end to it immediately.

“Come on,” Jughead spoke up to break the silence and wrapped his right arm around her shoulders. “I know for a fact that your mom made brownies and all that hard work made me hungry.”

His comment predictably made Betty laugh softly as she leaned into his frame and let him guide her back inside. “Of course you're hungry. Are you ever _not_?”

“Betts, the day I refuse the chance to eat – especially when it comes to food made in the Cooper household – you can start worrying about the end of the world,” he declared with ironclad conviction. That earned him another poke in his stomach but he could almost feel her smiling so he figured the pain was pretty worth it.

(As expected, the brownies were amazing just like the person sharing them with him. All in all, he thought, there was no way he would ever consider the day a waste.)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so who else is still recovering from that season finale? Because I'm probably going to be making inhuman screeching noises/dying whale sounds every single time I so much as think about it from now until... probably the day I die. Basically I don't think I'll ever recover. AS IF I COULD EVER WANT TO.
> 
> **Shameless Self-promotion:**  
>  If you haven't checked it out yet, I have another multi-chapter fic going in the Riverdale section titled That Primeval Cosmic Night (http://archiveofourown.org/works/10709265). I'm mostly pushing it because my search for someone to help me draw some crucial fanart for it continues and I am also running a little competition of sorts. The details are in the Author's Notes at the end of that first chapter so please, feel free to read it and respond to either one of those things!


End file.
